


Dear Akasha

by Measured_Words



Category: Changeling: the Dreaming, Webercon Whidbey Island Changeling Game
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Break Up Talk, Complicated Relationships, Epistolary, F/M, Letters, Recovered Memories, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: Those feels when you stumble into a libertarian hellscape you don't remember founding and find out its leader is your lover who has been waiting for you to return from a quest for 20 years, but you don't remember any of it and also you have a new girlfriend who doesn't like to share...
Relationships: Background Trolius ap Eiluned/Lou Masters, Trolius ap Eiluned/Akasha Quick
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

Dear Akasha,

~~I love you, and I'm sorry we can't be together – but can we talk?~~

(no, too short)

~~I would really like to see you again – just to talk. I love you but I don't have anything to anchor those feelings on. There are so many things I want to remember~~

(Mmmm…… no.)

~~I need to talk to you, but I need you to respect my boundaries.~~

(Too needy? Will she even know what that means?)

~~I would like to see you again, and I hope we can find some way to talk without hurting each other more.~~

(Ugh, is that even possible?)

~~I love you. This sucks. I want to hold you and I can't. I want to protect you and I can't~~

(ha ha haaaaaa no.)

I hope that you will read this, and be willing to see me again. That we can talk like people who care deeply about each other. ~~My feelings for you are so strong and confusing, and painful and~~

(closer?)

I hope that you will read this, and be willing to see me again, and that we can talk like people who care deeply about each other even if it is painful. ~~My memories are so scattered, and I~~

(I don't what? Asdfjk;js;dfkshr;kah)

~~I love you but I don't know you. I love you, and it hurts to know that you can't even see, or care, about how terrible this place is, because I love you anyway. I love you can I can't be with you, and I don't think I could even if it wasn’t for Lou, or the quest. I love you and I don't know why, I just have all these feeling and I want you to be safe and happy, but not like this, and I don't know if you are happy, and I feel like I left you here and if you can't move on – I don't know if its love or something else. Are these my feelings? Just memories? What's the difference? Hoe can I feel so strongly when I remember so little? What if you can change? Will it matter? Is that enough to make things better here? What would? And I don't want you to try for me, I want you to try for you. I keep trying not to think about fucking you, which is hard – why is that what I can remember? Sex isn't love. There are so many ways to love someone, can't we just let this one go? Love doesn't hold you back, it doesn’t hold you down, it helps you be better. I want to help you be better. I want you to feel whole without me, happy without me. I want you to see what better dreams there are that you could nurture. I know I'm hurting you, but being with me won't fix that. I don't want to change who I am. But I do want to remember – my life and my life with you. How we met, how we fell in love. But that's not the same as wanting to be that person again. I don't think I could. I don't want to be ruthless or cruel. Loyal, yes, stubborn, okay. But I can't make peace with something that I only know from scraps. This is so hard. I'm sorry. I just want to make it better.~~

(I…don't know if that helped.)

I hope that you will read this, and be willing to see me again, just to talk. Really talk. I know that it will painful, because we both care about each other deeply and this whole situation is really difficult. ~~but it is already painful.~~

(no fucking kidding.)

I hope that you will read this, and be willing to see me again, just to talk. Really talk. I know that it will painful, because we both care about each other deeply and this whole situation is really difficult. I think that it could be worthwhile if we can try to understand each other better without trying to hurt each other more. I want to tell you why Freemarket hurts me so much, and why I'm worried about you, because I am. I want to learn about us, and who we were to each other before. I want to try, or start to try, to figure out who we are to each other now. To find some way that we can heal. Please ~~give me this chance~~ take this chance with me.

~~Love~~  
~~Yours,~~

With love,

Trolius


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round 2 - now with more personal trauma!

Dear Akasha

Before all this other stuff happened, I had been thinking about our conversation the other night - what you told me you (we?) wanted for this place, compared to what I see here. Some other stuff has stirred all that up again, and even with everything else that's going on its still really important to me. 

I have been trying to understand what happened to that dream. And again - I don't blame you. This isn't all your fault. There were already flaws in the vision that we shared. Maybe we couldn't see them because we were blinded by our own story (stories?). And you may be at the top here, but there are so many other, creditors I guess, leeching off the hopes and dreams of people who come here. I don't know how much you would be able to change on your own, or what it might cost you.

When I think about what you told me, about how we met, how I won you, how I waited for you to be free to make your own choices.... Well. I sill want that for you. I don't really know what was in my heart then, only now. But I think the difference between that and what happens in Freemarket is - I wanted you to be free. I wanted that, so you could choose what *you* wanted. I guess I was banking on what that would be, but it was still your choice. In Freemarket.... there is too much advantage, and profit, in the weight of debt and obligation, to having people whose lives you control so utterly, who make you richer while their own debt racks up. I don't mean you personally, necessarily (I don't know - do you own people here? I'm not sure I want to know - maybe they're all hours in one way or another), but anyone who is working the system as opposed to being consumed by it.

You asked me what I would do, and I think that is it. People have to want their slaves, or debtors, or whatever you call them, to be free. I'm not who I used to be, I'm not clever enough to figure this all out, but maybe that is the heart of it. They won't want it on their own, though. There has to be some advantage to letting people clear their debts, and maybe some cost for keeping them. And maybe that's still financial, since that what this place has always been - a tax on slaves, or something, based on how long they have been in bondage, and a rebate on those taxes once they are released. It's still horrible. It's probably not enough. But it would help, maybe? I don't know, like I said - I'm not that smart. All of these problems feel so far beyond me, but I have to try.

What I remember from the other night was a nightmare. I think it was an old one. Asher said that I didn't like to talk about them, but maybe it was different with you. It was about what happened when I was separated from the rest of my house. I was in chains, with others who I knew and had fought along side me, but I couldn't help them without making it worse for them and for me. It would have been the same for any of us. And I can see, sort of, how being forced down that road could turn me into the Trolius you knew... Someone who survived but was scarred, punished for empathy until he could only manage to care for a select few. Who could relegate anyone outside that small circle to the same fate he'd suffered, or worse. If my life now has given me anything, its breathing room. Perspective, and freedom. Parallels that's aren't so overwhelming. These things still haunt me, like wounds that never set right, but maybe I can heal them now. This is part of that for me – stepping back, seeing where I was just carrying forward all that pain, and trying to set that right. If I have been given this second chance then it is something that I owe in return.

You said that you don't want to be here without me. You don't have to stay. I want you to be free, not to feel shackled to a dream we had together twenty years ago if that isn't what you want now. There are other people here who want to see this place change, and you could give them that chance. I want to you be happy, or as happy as you can be, and safe. Even if I can't remember, I can see how far you have come in life, how capable and focused and brilliant you are. You're amazing, I believe you could do so many things. I want that for you.

With love,

Trolius


End file.
